The Michael Knowles Show - January 05, 2026


Ep. 1883 - Trump Kidnaps A Venezuelan Communist Dictator REACTION


Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

164.71756

Word count

8,188

Sentence count

665

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

41

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was arrested by the US military and put on a ship to be tried in New York City, which itself is currently being run by a communist mayor. What does this mean for the future of Venezuela and the world order?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Ay, ay, ay, ay, caramba. What a weekend. If you put your phone down for an hour and a half over
00:00:06.500 the weekend, you might have missed the war in Venezuela in which President Trump and the US
00:00:11.480 military invaded the country, arrested the communist president, and put him on a ship
00:00:17.640 to be tried in New York City, which itself is currently being run by a communist mayor.
00:00:23.260 Now, everyone is speculating on the implications of this action, what it means for US foreign
00:00:28.940 policy, what it means for America first, what it means for the global order. But I would first
00:00:33.860 like to offer an observation on the obvious next steps from here. Step one, depose Maduro in
00:00:40.580 Venezuela. Step two, send him to New York to be tried for his crimes. Step three, depose Mamdani 0.51
00:00:49.520 in New York. Step four, install Maduro as mayor of New York City. Step five, and this is the strangest
00:00:57.660 part of all, both Venezuela and New York would improve as a result. I'm Michael Knowles. This
00:01:03.220 Michael Knowles show. Welcome back to the show. At least Maduro is not a Muslim, right? 1.00
00:01:26.440 Does that, I mean, look, I'm not saying, neither are ideal. You don't want communist dictators
00:01:32.520 anywhere. But I'm just offering something that I haven't seen other people float. The real question
00:01:37.820 for a lot of people right now is what happens now? Are we headed into some 20-year occupation
00:01:43.200 like Afghanistan? Are we heading into some years-long occupation like Iraq? What does this
00:01:48.040 mean for America first? What does this mean for the so-called non-interventionist crowd? And
00:01:53.000 we'll get into all of that because this was really, really artfully done by the president.
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00:03:31.920 The operation was over in 88 minutes. When I say if you put your phone down for an hour and a half,
00:03:38.260 you missed it, that doesn't even tell you the whole story because it happened in the middle of the
00:03:42.200 night. It happened at two o'clock in the morning, Eastern time or local, Caracas time.
00:03:47.340 It happened while we were all asleep. From the time that the US forces got to Maduro's compound
00:03:55.200 to the time they were out of the country, back in international waters with the president of
00:04:01.560 Venezuela, it was 88 minutes. Now, how did they get from the sea into Caracas? They just turned off
00:04:10.320 all the power and the defense systems in the country because apparently we can do that.
00:04:14.580 And then we sent in a team of like a dozen special operators and they just took the president
00:04:20.520 without incurring any casualties. It was, I don't care if you are the most isolationist right winger.
00:04:28.840 I don't care if you're the most anti-American leftist. You got to be impressed because I think
00:04:35.720 what this military action leaves a lot of Americans thinking beyond thoughts of Western hemispheric
00:04:42.120 hegemony and American imperialism and the drug trade and the international order. What it makes
00:04:51.960 us think first is, man, we still got it. You know, we still got it. We're back to back world war champs.
00:04:59.660 And then we went through kind of a malaise and we kept losing like every war after that.
00:05:05.200 The Korean conflict was sort of whatever. And then we lost Vietnam and then Iraq, we won and 0.88
00:05:10.000 then we lost. And Afghanistan, we won and then we lost. And it just, we're just in this malaise.
00:05:14.540 And then America does something like this. And you just think, oh, wow, man, there is no other
00:05:22.280 military on earth that can project power in, in any way, even slightly comparable to this.
00:05:31.380 Like this is just a totally different thing. And it's awesome. Here is president Trump describing
00:05:36.820 the operation. All the way back, it dated to the Monroe doctrines and the Monroe doctrine is a big
00:05:47.760 deal. But we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Monroe
00:05:55.560 document. I don't know. It's Monroe doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It was very important,
00:06:03.600 but we forgot about it. We don't forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy,
00:06:08.820 American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again. Won't happen.
00:06:15.160 So just in concluding for decades, other administrations have neglected or even
00:06:20.740 contributed to these growing security threats in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Trump
00:06:27.840 administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region.
00:06:35.560 And our home region is very different than it was just a short while ago.
00:06:40.500 So first, you know, I'm a sucker for a good pun. Monroe doctrine to Donro doctrine is awesome.
00:06:47.300 I want this applied to many other world historic events. I like the idea of Trump taking credit
00:06:53.040 for the Roman Empire giving terrestrial power to the popes. They call it, look, some people call it
00:07:00.440 the donation of Constantine. We call it the donation of Constantine. Okay, we're giving,
00:07:05.680 we're giving secular power to the popes. Love that. Love the Donro doctrine. And that line alone
00:07:13.540 answers a lot of worries and questions that people have. Is this like Iraq? No, because the Iraq war 0.66
00:07:21.840 was a matter of trying to extend neoliberal ideology all around the world. It was a 21st century
00:07:30.020 neo-imperialist endeavor that had all the downsides of imperialism without any of the upsides.
00:07:37.000 What happened in Venezuela is as American as apple pie. Deposing Latin American dictators 0.63
00:07:42.660 is an American pastime more traditional than baseball. Okay, we've done it zillions of times
00:07:48.560 over the years. It is based on the cornerstone of American foreign policy, which is the Monroe
00:07:53.440 doctrine, which says that other nations need to get out of our hemisphere. They need to stop messing 0.54
00:07:58.540 around in our backyard. We will not tolerate that. And that's what this is really about.
00:08:03.500 The predicate for the action was not a regime change war. It wasn't a war. The predicate was
00:08:11.020 the arrest of Nicolas Maduro, who the United States did not recognize as the legitimate leader of
00:08:17.660 Venezuela because he lost an election. A lot of the international community didn't recognize him as
00:08:21.940 legitimate. And he was arrested for the crime of narco-terrorism, which is what he's going to be 0.92
00:08:26.320 tried for in New York. That was the predicate for it. So you say, okay, we want to cut off the drugs
00:08:30.960 coming from Venezuela. He was effectively just the head of a cartel. And so we're going to arrest this
00:08:35.860 cartel guy, just the same way we'd arrest Pablo Escobar, or do a little worse than arrest Pablo
00:08:41.400 Escobar. That was one of the predicates. However, there are other interests, obviously, as well.
00:08:47.260 Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. So some people are pointing out this is a war for
00:08:51.300 oil, war for securing resources. To some degree, that's true, though that's overstated. But really what
00:08:56.260 this is about is that Venezuela was allied with hostile regimes. Venezuela was chummy chummy with 0.62
00:09:04.760 China and with Russia and with Iran and with a bunch of countries that don't like us. And they had
00:09:10.720 resources in Venezuela, and we're not going to tolerate that. Regardless of what you think about
00:09:15.560 the operation, though I think most people are very impressed by it, you'd have to say that is very,
00:09:19.880 very traditional. It's very much in the American national spirit. Okay, so what actually happened
00:09:26.760 here? We turn to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Raisin Cain.
00:09:32.040 Every component of our joint force was soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians working in
00:09:39.840 unison with our intelligence agency partners and law enforcement teammates in an unprecedented
00:09:45.740 operation. We leveraged our unmatched intelligence capabilities and our years of experience in
00:09:53.160 hunting terrorists. And we could not have done this mission without the incredible work by various
00:09:58.660 intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA, and NGA. We watched. We waited. We prepared. We remained
00:10:08.800 patient and professional. This mission was meticulously planned, drawing lessons from decades of missions
00:10:17.000 over the last many years. Decades of many missions over these last many years. This was an audacious
00:10:23.780 operation that only the United States could do. It required the utmost of precision and integration
00:10:32.020 within our joint force. And the word integration does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission.
00:10:40.220 An extraction so precise, it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western
00:10:47.880 Hemisphere. In close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single
00:10:57.140 purpose, to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical
00:11:05.140 surprise. Failure of one component of this well-oiled machine would have endangered the entire mission.
00:11:13.380 And failure is never an option for America's joint force.
00:11:18.020 It's just insane. There was a Reddit post going around where in the lead up to this Venezuela operation,
00:11:24.880 which has been telegraphed for months and months and months, which makes it all the more impressive
00:11:29.360 actually, because Maduro was expecting it and they still got him out in 88 minutes without any
00:11:33.380 American casualties. But there was this Reddit post going around that said, this is totally ridiculous.
00:11:38.240 What, you think US special forces are just like space marines who can just beam into a place,
00:11:43.620 take the nation's president and get out of there? Come on, that's ridiculous. A lot of American
00:11:48.580 servicemen would be killed. This would go on for days or weeks and this was just, you know,
00:11:52.360 you guys have unrealistic expectations. And then they had to edit the Reddit post and said,
00:11:57.540 actually, nevermind, Delta Force is just space marines. You're right. It is totally insane
00:12:03.640 what they did. And you hear this 150 aircraft, you know, obviously huge military buildup in the sea
00:12:10.380 and the coordination of all these agencies. And this I think is what is so heartening for a lot
00:12:15.160 of Americans. There are two views on the CIA. One view says the CIA is James Bond, Jason Bourne
00:12:22.880 controls the world. The other view of the CIA is that the CIA is burn after reading. It's the
00:12:28.820 Coen brothers movie. They can't do anything right. Every time they try to do anything, 0.98
00:12:32.300 they bungle it even further. They make a whole mess of the world and they should probably be disbanded.
00:12:37.240 These are the two views of the CIA. And then when an operation like this takes place,
00:12:44.400 you saw John Ratcliffe, CIA director with the president while it's going on, president and
00:12:48.020 Marco Rubio. You realize CIA was deeply, deeply involved as they always are in overthrowing regimes
00:12:53.460 in Latin America. You say, man, the CIA is pretty good at its job. Then people's objection to the CIA
00:13:00.040 would be that the CIA just does a bunch of like gay stuff. Then people's objection to the CIA is that
00:13:08.280 the CIA is just this element of this liberal bureaucracy, deep state that exists to expand
00:13:14.040 transgender rights in the Philippines. And that's stupid and it's a waste of money and it's actually 1.00
00:13:18.680 bad. And that's why we should stop these clandestine operations. But when the CIA is good at its job,
00:13:27.800 not incompetent, not burn after reading. And when the CIA is doing stuff that is good for America,
00:13:34.760 like defending America's core national interests, especially closer to home, you know, with proximity,
00:13:40.940 kicking out bad people, securing oil fields, like that kind of stuff. That's a big boost in confidence
00:13:47.140 for the CIA, for the American military, for the American government generally. Very, very impressive.
00:13:53.500 And so then Marco Rubio steps in. Marco Rubio, a man with a thousand jobs, about to be a thousand
00:13:58.660 and one. Rubio comes in and gives us the geopolitical implications. We'll get to that in
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00:15:16.500 M-I-C-H-A-E-L, K-N-A-W-L-E-S at checkout. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor and head of
00:15:24.640 USAID and and future Presidente de Venezuela, Marco Rubio, tell us the geopolitics.
00:15:33.480 The other message here is the following. You have a guy, like many people around the world,
00:15:37.640 they like to play games. You have a guy who decides he's going to invite Iran into his country, 0.98
00:15:41.700 is going to, you know, do the confiscation of American oil companies, is going to flood our
00:15:46.280 country with gang members, is going to take Americans prisoner and try to hold them for 0.66
00:15:51.360 hostage and trade them like he was able to do with the Biden administration. Basically likes to play
00:15:55.700 games all this time and thinks nothing's going to happen. And I hope what people now understand is
00:16:00.080 we have a president. The 47th president of the United States is not a game player. When he tells you
00:16:05.220 that he's going to do something, when he's good, tells you he's going to address a problem, he means
00:16:09.140 it. He actions it. I can tell you, I've watched this process now for 14, 15 years, been around it.
00:16:14.420 Everybody talks, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. When I get there, we're going to do
00:16:17.220 this, we're going to take, this is a president of action. Like, I don't understand yet how they
00:16:21.480 haven't figured this out. And now if you don't know, now you know. What's the next word when I heard
00:16:28.460 Marco Rubio quoting Biggie Smalls? And if you don't know, now you know. Fellas, is it fellas?
00:16:36.320 Is it, what is that word that comes after? Very impressive stuff. And an important point on the
00:16:42.000 geopolitical implications. The operation Venezuela, practically speaking, was as much about Afghanistan
00:16:49.500 as it was about Venezuela. We say it was about China, it was about Iran, it was about Russia.
00:16:54.700 It was also about Afghanistan. Because we keep losing wars, and we keep bungling. And we, I mean,
00:17:00.420 mostly Democrats, but some Republicans too. And we look weak, and we maintain the global order.
00:17:07.320 So we can't look weak. There is a very high cost to America looking incompetent and weak.
00:17:13.000 And the Afghanistan withdrawal was probably the apotheosis of bungling, stupid American foreign 1.00
00:17:19.900 policy. We just couldn't get anything right. We alternately stayed in Afghanistan,
00:17:24.520 way too long. We didn't have a clear objective of what Afghanistan was going to do. And then we got 1.00
00:17:28.040 out in the worst way possible. It was just a complete catastrophe. And Venezuela is the anti-Afghanistan 0.89
00:17:34.840 in every way. Where it was, what the interests were, how long it went, how efficiently it was carried out.
00:17:43.460 It was just, it was the anti-Afghanistan. And that sends a message that we're serious,
00:17:48.860 we're going to do stuff. Trump's America first, as I've contended for years at this point,
00:17:54.240 is not the America first of just retreating into our own shores. It's not the America first
00:17:59.640 primarily of nationalism. Another, another N-word that could have followed if you don't know,
00:18:04.760 now you know. Trump's America first is the America first of power, of world order, of empire,
00:18:13.620 a recognition that we are a great power. And we're not going to deny that. We're not going to deny
00:18:18.880 that in the left-wing way of opposing, you know, colonialism or something, hating our own national
00:18:25.840 history. But we're not going to oppose it in the left-wing, or the right-wing way rather,
00:18:29.880 which is the isolationist, libertarian, Republic of Yeoman farmers kind of way, which is just as
00:18:35.320 divorced from reality as the left-wing view. In some ways, more divorced from reality.
00:18:39.060 No, we're going to be great, and we're going to secure our interests. And in so doing,
00:18:43.820 that will conduce to the common good of the whole world. Because the world relies on the American 0.71
00:18:49.020 order. So who is going to run it? Who is going to run Venezuela? President Trump gives us a pretty
00:18:56.860 clear answer. What's the group you mentioned that would run Venezuela? Well, it's largely going to be
00:19:03.560 for a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me. Pause, pause it right, hold on,
00:19:09.640 give me, can we get a screen grab? Yeah, there it is. There, this poor man. I was in the cabinet
00:19:17.200 meeting when, right before Labor Day, it was going around the table, all the cabinet secretaries,
00:19:22.520 and the president gets to Marco Rubio, and he says, you know, this is a very important Labor Day for me
00:19:27.200 as a man who has four jobs. Well, ad number five, or six, or seven. Trump says, right there, right at
00:19:35.680 that very moment, but for at least a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me
00:19:39.740 will be running Venezuela. You look at Rubio's face, just, ah, here we go again. Ay, ay, ay.
00:19:48.840 Ay, oh, callate, señor presidente, por favor. No, no. But it's going to be him. That's great.
00:19:59.540 The way people are going to be debating this issue is going to be very, very silly. I'm saying even
00:20:06.900 on the right, because on the right, you have this divide between the interventionists and the
00:20:12.500 non-interventionists, and the pejorative term for interventionist is neocon, and the pejorative term
00:20:20.780 for non-interventionist is isolationist. You never hear someone say, I'm a proud isolationist. It's
00:20:26.880 always the other guy who accuses you of being an isolationist, or vice versa. You never hear someone
00:20:30.240 say, I love being a neocon. They say, no, no, I'm an interventionist or whatever. That debate is
00:20:38.380 very, very stupid. People are not sufficiently paying attention to this point. There is no
00:20:47.180 real debate between interventionists and non-interventionists. No serious person over
00:20:54.700 the age of 19, and 19-year-olds are not serious people just as a matter of definition, no serious
00:21:02.120 person says, I'm an interventionist or a non-interventionist. That is completely silly.
00:21:09.520 That is like history 101 freshman year of college silly. Nations have interests, and nations have
00:21:20.260 power and sometimes have to project power, and they have interests all around the world.
00:21:24.640 Nations always are intervening in various affairs. That doesn't mean that you have to go spread
00:21:33.640 democracy around the world like the neocons, and it doesn't mean that you have to just retreat into
00:21:40.580 your own borders that will never change. Borders are going to change because peoples grow, peoples die. 0.94
00:21:45.720 history happens, okay? There is no, do not, if anyone presents this to you as a debate between
00:21:53.860 interventionism and non-interventionist, if anyone comes out and says, I'm an interventionist,
00:21:57.520 I'm a non-interventionist, just tune them out. It's so silly. That is an admission of, I am not a
00:22:04.360 serious person. The question of what Donald Trump did in Venezuela is so much more interesting than that.
00:22:13.360 So get that out of your head. Obviously, that's not in Trump's head. And anyone who is surprised
00:22:19.340 by Trump intervening in Latin America just hasn't been paying attention, doesn't know what he means
00:22:23.980 by America first, doesn't know what he means by make America great again, doesn't know a thing
00:22:29.300 about American history or policy. Okay, that of course does not stop the left from whining about
00:22:35.120 this. But the way the left is whining, it is chef's kiss. I've never seen a more beautiful setup,
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00:23:56.580 K-N-W-L-E-S. Thank you, Remy, for sponsoring this show. Kamala Harris. Here she is, 0.98
00:24:02.080 the woman who would have been president. Donald Trump's actions. All right, no, I won't do the
00:24:12.160 Kamala voice. It would be too unbearable, especially given what she says. She says, 1.00
00:24:17.360 Donald Trump's actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable.
00:24:22.700 Just put a pause right there. Kicking our chief geopolitical adversaries out of the hemisphere,
00:24:29.140 stopping the chief source of mass migration, which is itself a crime, the illegal immigration, 0.91
00:24:38.780 and always involves the cartels through the southern border, and securing oil fields that
00:24:45.400 had been stolen, oil properties that had been stolen by the Chavez and Maduro regimes,
00:24:51.360 that even if you hate the action, it certainly makes America safer, stronger, more affordable.
00:24:55.240 But wait, she goes on. The American people do not want this, and they're being tired. They're tired
00:24:59.940 of being lied to. I promise you, public opinion polls of this operation will reflect that it was
00:25:06.940 very popular. Of the operation itself, who knows what happens after that, but of the operation, I
00:25:11.560 promise you, people think it's awesome. Third, and this is the key, America needs leadership whose
00:25:19.180 priorities are lowering costs for working families, enforcing the rule of law, strengthening
00:25:23.340 alliances, and most importantly, putting the American people first. Okay, let's take it right in a row.
00:25:27.260 Lowering costs for working families. The things that drive up costs are energy, chiefly, and mass
00:25:34.220 migration. Mass migration, which is responsible for 100% of the increase in rent demand in New York
00:25:41.600 and California, 60% nationwide. Mass migration, which is responsible for screwing up the labor market 1.00
00:25:49.060 and wages, which is responsible for drains on our welfare system, which downstream, because of food 0.95
00:25:57.000 subsidies, end up raising the cost of groceries. It is the chief driver of unaffordability.
00:26:03.720 So if you want to lower costs for working families, getting rid of Maduro is a pretty smart thing to do.
00:26:09.940 Second, enforcing the rule of law. Maduro was the head of a cartel. Maduro was broadly considered the
00:26:21.060 illegitimate president of Venezuela. Maduro undermined the law, strengthening alliances. Maduro
00:26:29.280 was allies with all of our enemies. So if you want to strengthen alliances, getting rid of the guy who
00:26:34.880 is bringing our enemies into the hemisphere is probably a smart thing to do. And most importantly, 1.00
00:26:39.160 putting the American people first. Yeah, well, the predicate for this was Venezuelan drugs are 0.66
00:26:44.620 killing Americans. Venezuelan migrants are killing Americans. And the terrorists and adversaries that 1.00
00:26:53.660 Venezuela is lying with target Americans. So that would put the American people first. But forget 0.98
00:26:57.820 about all that. The criticism is of Trump's action, Trump's action to arrest Maduro and try him for
00:27:05.840 his crimes. And Kamala Harris says this is completely unacceptable. Rewind to the Biden-Harris
00:27:12.940 administration earlier this year, January 10th. Sorry, earlier within the last 365 days.
00:27:23.300 It was early last year, but still within the last year. Condemning Nicolas Maduro's illegitimate
00:27:28.580 attempt to seize power in Venezuela and announcing new actions against Maduro and his representatives
00:27:32.840 to support the Venezuelan people. Where is my, here it is. In solidarity with the Venezuelan people,
00:27:40.460 the U.S. government and our partners around the world are taking action today. The Department of State
00:27:43.860 is increasing the reward offers to up to $25 million each for information leading to the arrests
00:27:49.380 and or convictions of Nicolas Maduro and Maduro's minister of the interior, Diosdado Cabello.
00:27:56.140 The Department of State is also adding a new reward offer up to $15 million for the defense minister on
00:28:02.460 and on and on. The Biden-Harris administration offered $25 million of your money, of your taxpayer
00:28:12.000 money to do exactly what Trump just did. Trump just did the Biden-Harris policy, the policy that they
00:28:22.480 said was their policy, but they were too cowardly to do it. He just did the thing they promised to do,
00:28:28.040 except he did it for $25 million cheaper. Actually, well, depending on what happens to the rest of
00:28:33.200 these apparatchiks, possibly $40 million cheaper than Biden even tried to do it. So now Kamala Harris
00:28:38.660 just looks like a complete dope. Because not only were they not able to carry out the policy that
00:28:43.380 Trump carried out magnificently, she didn't even know what the policy was.
00:28:47.380 So Trump has now trolled the libs into defending a narco-terrorist communist and a man that the left
00:28:57.720 had been begging to remove from power for years and years and years, which exposes the left not
00:29:05.840 merely as communists or defenders of anti-American figures or defenders of, I don't know, narco-terrorism,
00:29:12.840 whatever. It reveals the left to be purely reflexive, purely reflexive. They previously
00:29:20.360 criticized Trump for being soft on Maduro. Now they're criticizing Trump for arresting Maduro,
00:29:26.000 for doing exactly what Biden-Harris wanted to do. They previously wanted to suck up to Russia
00:29:32.280 during the Hillary Clinton Great Reset, the first Great Reset. Then they attacked Trump as being a
00:29:40.500 Putin stooge. They're purely reflexive. I'm not saying that that reflexiveness doesn't exist at
00:29:46.100 all on the right. It does. It's politics. You gauge your reactions based in part on your adversaries.
00:29:51.340 But I think that the right has a firmer grasp on its own principles and even on objective reality
00:29:56.720 than the left does. The left at this point, I think, is purely reactionary. And I don't think
00:30:01.560 it's merely a coincidence that the left is self-consciously unmoored from an objective
00:30:07.880 moral order or even objective physical reality, as you see quite clearly in the transgender 1.00
00:30:11.880 ideology. The fact that the left is relativistic and subjectivistic about everything makes them
00:30:17.960 more susceptible to being purely reactive when it comes to policy, such that now they're attacking
00:30:22.420 Trump for doing the thing that they themselves wanted to do 360 days ago. So what, what, what happens
00:30:32.500 now? What happens now is our adversaries take note. I mentioned the Russia, Iran, China connections.
00:30:42.060 Also not a coincidence, I think. Chinese diplomats had just arrived in Venezuela to negotiate with Maduro.
00:30:49.220 So our chief geopolitical adversary arrives in Venezuela to negotiate with this guy. America then
00:30:56.040 comes in while they're waiting to eat their canapé and drink their champagne. The American military flies
00:31:02.120 in and just takes the president, just yoinks him right out of the palace. The Chinese are still in 1.00
00:31:10.100 Venezuela. They're still waiting on that meeting. They're going to be waiting a long time. So that
00:31:13.880 sends a very, very clear message. And then the question becomes, was this defensible? I think this
00:31:19.580 is defensible any way you slice it. When it comes to the question of persuading conservatives that this
00:31:24.040 is defensible because they don't want to have another replay of Iraq. We've, we've already gone 0.98
00:31:28.260 into that. This is not Iraq. This is kind of like the opposite of Iraq. It's kind of the opposite of 0.95
00:31:31.880 Afghanistan as far as foreign policy interventions go. But what about from the perspective of international
00:31:38.500 law? Some conservatives are going to say, there's no such thing as international law. And we all joke
00:31:42.840 about that a little bit because the UN is a joke and a lot of those international institutions are jokes.
00:31:47.560 But in principle, there is such a thing as international law. International law is an extrapolation
00:31:54.000 from the natural law, which like international law, we can't quite see it. We can't quite touch it.
00:31:59.480 There's not exactly a terrestrial authority that can perfectly exact justice about it. Nevertheless,
00:32:06.500 it exists. And it certainly exists in as much as the different nations of the world come together
00:32:12.440 and say, we're going to recognize certain treaties. We're going to recognize certain privileges.
00:32:17.360 We're going to behave in a certain way. There is such a thing as international law.
00:32:20.460 But from the perspective of international law, this was defensible. Any nations do not recognize
00:32:27.500 Maduro as being the legitimate president of Venezuela. This was a law enforcement action,
00:32:34.900 therefore, against an illegitimate leader of a nation. The Monroe Doctrine is pretty firmly established
00:32:42.620 in international law and geopolitics. And because of the Monroe Doctrine and because of the
00:32:50.360 proximity of Venezuela to the United States, it's much more defensible to say, look, there were
00:32:55.700 seriously threatening actions being taken very near to our borders. And out of self-protection,
00:33:03.280 which is a key aspect of the natural law and the international law, we had to go in and take this
00:33:07.880 action in a prudent way. I think just about any way you slice it, this is defensible.
00:33:13.020 Even down to the point that you can hardly call it a war. In what way was it a war?
00:33:20.860 Nevertheless, the liberal activist groups, notably including the Chicago Teachers Union,
00:33:25.940 are protesting the war. The Chicago Teachers Union is protesting the war in Venezuela
00:33:31.040 after the war already finished. We are five days into the year, if this weekend was any indication.
00:33:36.780 It's going to be a year where you want the news as it happens. You're going to want to manage the
00:33:41.020 situation, monitor the situation. No tabloids, no clickbait designed to stoke fake outrage.
00:33:46.060 Actual news, actual facts in real time, and analysis from the most trusted voices
00:33:49.640 in conservative media. This is why The Daily Wire exists. You get serious investigative journalism,
00:33:54.460 uncovering domestic issues like fraud in Minneapolis, real reporting on major international
00:33:57.840 developments like the U.S. operation in Venezuela. You also get live updates, breaking news alerts,
00:34:01.760 and full access to our daily ad-free uncensored shows and premium entertainment library. Go to
00:34:05.680 dailywire.com slash subscribe. Today is the last day to save 40% on a new annual membership. Do not
00:34:10.500 miss it. I want to tell you about my favorite comment on Friday. This is from abreen339, who says,
00:34:16.440 I would say voting for Gavin Newsom is the downside to hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.
00:34:21.660 This is from, I had a very interesting interview with a young streamer named Clavicular. I really
00:34:28.520 enjoyed speaking with him. Very interesting guy. You can catch that. I interviewed him just a few days
00:34:34.040 before he ran a guy over in his cyber truck, allegedly. Anyway, you can catch the interview
00:34:38.200 on my YouTube channel. He said, though, that I was wasting my time in politics. He said that all the
00:34:42.920 time I wasted in politics, I could have been bone smashing. I could have been hitting myself in the
00:34:46.460 head with a hammer. I said, is there any downside to doing that? He said, no. Looked at me like I was
00:34:50.440 the stupidest guy in the world. Said, of course there's no downside to hitting yourself in the head
00:34:53.840 with a hammer. But then later in the interview, he endorsed Gavin Newsom. So you're right,
00:34:57.220 maybe that's a downside. Emergency Chicago protest. No war on Venezuela. Stop the bombings.
00:35:06.780 Saturday, January 3rd, Federal Plaza, 5 p.m. This came out from the Chicago Teachers. Why is the
00:35:12.760 Chicago Teachers Union organizing foreign policy demonstrations? Yeah, great question. However,
00:35:19.000 in this case, I think it's really a win-win. Just like I said, you extract Maduro from Venezuela,
00:35:23.680 you bring them to New York, then you depose Momdani in New York, you make Maduro the mayor
00:35:28.020 of New York. It's not ideal in any case, but both places would improve. That's a win-win, I think.
00:35:33.980 Well, so too here, it's a win-win. The Chicago Teachers Union demands no war on Venezuela.
00:35:39.920 Hey, guys, good news. There's no war on Venezuela. Good news. By the time you are gathering for your
00:35:46.020 protest, there's no war on Venezuela. Stop the bombings. Oh, hey, guys, even more great news.
00:35:52.020 There are no bombings. You missed it. The war, such as it is, was so efficiently fought and won
00:36:01.680 that you didn't even have time to complain about it. And you didn't even have time to whine.
00:36:08.540 And you guys are really good at whining. You guys are the Michael Jordan of whining.
00:36:13.000 You're the Delta Force of whining. So you should have, if anyone was going to whine in time,
00:36:17.520 it was going to be you, but you missed it because of how efficiently this military operation was carried
00:36:21.100 out. It's even better than the precedents for it in American history. Because we've done some,
00:36:27.380 I mentioned, we've intervened in Latin America a zillion times. But even recently, you think of
00:36:33.060 George Bush, George Bush I in Panama. That intervention where we took out Noriega, that 1.00
00:36:39.040 lasted a relatively short period of time. Or Ronald Reagan in Grenada, same thing.
00:36:45.400 So of relatively recent vintage, you had two pretty good Republican presidents, Reagan especially
00:36:50.660 good, carry out similar operations. Trump did it even better than they did, even better than they
00:36:56.700 did. Ronald Reagan, the man who won the Cold War, and George H.W. Bush, widely considered one of the
00:37:01.880 great foreign policy presidents we've ever had. Trump actually was even more efficient than them.
00:37:06.860 The Chicago Teachers Union would have had time to protest, Reagan and Bush, not Trump.
00:37:12.320 So who's going to take over Venezuela? Everyone's been talking about this lady, 1.00
00:37:16.440 Maria Karina Machado. She's the opposition leader right now. And yet all these neuralgic,
00:37:22.940 neurotic kind of people on the right saying, oh no, this is bad. She's a globalist. It's all about
00:37:27.280 Israel or something. I guess she likes Israel. It looks like it's not going to be her because she
00:37:33.080 just doesn't seem to have the support. So for right now, Marco Rubio is going to help run it.
00:37:38.740 Donald Trump's going to help run it. But they are going to leave part of the government
00:37:41.800 intact. This is also why the Venezuela intervention is quite different from Iraq. In Iraq,
00:37:48.220 they dissolved the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, one of the crucial strategic blunders of the Iraq war.
00:37:54.620 But in Venezuela, they're going to leave a lot of the government in place. They're leaving the
00:37:58.880 vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. They're leaving her in place. And then Trump is simply saying,
00:38:04.800 look, we're going to leave you in place. But if you do anything that we don't like,
00:38:08.820 we're going to kill you. That's what he said. He said in a telephone interview,
00:38:13.520 Trump apparently said, quote, if she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price,
00:38:18.120 probably bigger than Maduro. Maduro was kidnapped and is awaiting trial in New York City.
00:38:22.980 What's the bigger price? He goes, yeah, look, we're going to leave your government basically
00:38:26.120 in place. We don't want chaos. We don't want insurgency. We don't want the place to dissolve
00:38:29.460 into civil war. We're going to leave your government in place. This isn't about spreading
00:38:32.240 democracy or liberalism or whatever. We're going to leave it in place. And if you mess up,
00:38:37.460 we're going to kill you. And then the next guy is going to be in place. Kabish. You understand? 1.00
00:38:45.140 According to the New York Times, it was Maduro's constant dancing that was the last straw for Trump.
00:38:52.680 It was Maduro's dancing. He was singing, imagine all the people live. That was for me,
00:38:58.440 that was it, is to take him out. And so they're going to put Delsian. Apparently, 1.00
00:39:02.180 according to the reporting, her ability to increase oil output under sanctions impressed
00:39:07.440 some members of the Trump administration. The fact that she was able to perform her job very well,
00:39:13.400 even amid US pressure, was impressive. So they say, okay, look, we don't like you. We don't agree
00:39:17.920 with you. We don't obviously, you know, but you seem relatively competent. So anyway, run the country.
00:39:22.680 If you get out of line, we're going to kill you. We're going to go to the next guy.
00:39:24.580 Good? All good? Okay. This is political realism. The neocon early 2000s spread democracy around the
00:39:34.260 world guys, they would have put in Maria Karina Machado. Or I don't know enough about Machado, 0.87
00:39:39.980 but they would have put in one of these brave opposition leaders. They would have installed
00:39:44.740 Greta Thunberg or something, right? No. We're going to deal with real tough people because this is a
00:39:49.940 real tough situation because we're focused primarily on American interests and longstanding US foreign
00:39:55.860 policy. That's realism. Realism and fortitude do not need to be opposed to each other,
00:40:04.440 which is why President Trump's already threatening Cuba.
00:40:08.420 Now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, 0.90
00:40:13.100 from the Venezuelan oil. They're not getting any of it. And Cuba literally is ready to fall. And
00:40:18.280 you have a lot of great Cuban Americans that are going to be very happy about this.
00:40:22.820 Marco Rubio has really-
00:40:24.520 Okay, there we go. Cuba might fall because Venezuela was propping up Cuba.
00:40:29.780 So this is another consequence. You had Cuba, which has been inviting our enemies into the 0.99
00:40:33.840 hemisphere for 60 years because of a Democrat, because of Kennedy. And Trump says, yeah,
00:40:39.940 we're going to see about that. How about Colombia? Mr. President, what about Colombia?
00:40:44.220 Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United
00:40:51.620 States. And he's not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.
00:40:54.980 What does that mean? He's not going to be doing it very long.
00:40:56.920 He's not doing it very long. He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He's not going to be doing
00:41:03.540 it very long.
00:41:03.820 So there will be an operation by the US in Colombia?
00:41:06.040 It sounds good to me.
00:41:07.880 Sounds good to me. Now notice, he's not saying we're going to go invade Colombia.
00:41:11.220 He's not saying we're going to go invade Cuba. He's saying we could. Maybe we will. What do
00:41:19.080 you think about that? He's saying this not just about Latin America. He's saying this even when
00:41:23.240 it comes to Greenland, a territory that Trump has long desired, that the US State Department
00:41:27.560 has long desired now for over 150 years. We need Greenland for national security,
00:41:34.040 not for minerals. We have so many sites for minerals and oil and everything. We have more
00:41:38.700 oil than any other country in the world. We need Greenland for national security.
00:41:43.700 And if you take a look at Greenland, you look up and down the coast, you have Russian and Chinese
00:41:47.620 ships all over the place.
00:41:50.160 We need Greenland and we're going to have it. That's what he's saying. He's not angry.
00:41:53.940 He's not ideological. He's just saying, look, we need it and we're going to have it,
00:41:57.560 you know, so we can do it the easy way or the hard way. I'm just telling you.
00:42:00.680 I'm describing. I'm not even prescribing. I'm describing. We're going to have it.
00:42:04.040 Now, politics is getting real again. This is the real sign of the times that comes out of the
00:42:10.420 Venezuela operation. Politics has not been real. Geopolitics has not been real for 35 years now.
00:42:19.960 Really since the end of the Cold War. After the Cold War, we had unquestioned American hegemony
00:42:27.040 up until 9-11. 9-11 started to shake the ideologues, the ideologues who said that liberalism had won,
00:42:36.580 history had ended, there would be no more history. There would be no more conflict. We would all just
00:42:43.140 kind of kumbaya. There would be global trade. We'd all focus on material prosperity. And that was it.
00:42:50.080 And then 9-11 shook that a little bit because Muslim fanatics waged a crusades-like campaign 0.69
00:42:59.380 to attack that liberal materialist American-led West. And then what did we do? We responded with
00:43:06.860 even more surreal, abstract, hyper-real politics, where we said, we're going to double down. We're
00:43:12.880 going to super-duper spread our ideology now. And we're going to plant freedom seeds all over the
00:43:18.960 Middle East. And we're going to have Madisonian democracy spring up. And that didn't happen.
00:43:23.620 It was part and parcel of the same silly, surreal politics that we had since the end of the Cold
00:43:27.820 War. And now politics is getting real again. And now Trump is coming out and he's not talking about
00:43:34.200 the sweet sound of freedom that all American ears, all the ears of all human beings perk up for,
00:43:40.800 the longings of our hearts for the writings of John Rawls. And oh, if we could only drop copies of
00:43:47.840 the second treatise of government down, I don't know. He says, hey, look, this guy, he stole our
00:43:53.600 royal properties and he was inviting our enemies in. And so we took him. We just came in the middle
00:43:58.560 of the night and we took him. And we're going to do that to you too, if you do it again. So get in
00:44:01.880 line. Hey, Colombia, you saw what we just did to him? Get in line. Hey, Cuba, get in line. 0.94
00:44:09.840 We're not playing around. Hey, we need Greenland. Sorry, we need it. China and Russia are threatening 1.00
00:44:18.100 us. We need it. It's ridiculous that Denmark controls it. Most of the Greenlanders want to 0.80
00:44:21.740 be part of America anyway, in some way. Probably we don't want the 51st state, but in some kind of
00:44:26.640 tier. Anyway, we're going to get it. Somehow we're just going to get it. Okay. We need it.
00:44:30.840 Capisce? That kind of realism, I think, is refreshing for a lot of people. Because the
00:44:39.600 America first impulse, certainly not for Trump and not for me, was never about just burying
00:44:44.640 our heads in the sand or something. The America first impulse was about recognizing reality
00:44:49.500 and recognizing that governments have a responsibility to their own constituents first,
00:44:55.860 to their own citizens first. We need to put our interests first, in accord with justice,
00:45:01.020 in accord with national law, in accord even with international law. But we just got to know
00:45:06.140 whose team we're on, folks. That's what America first certainly has meant to Trump and has meant
00:45:11.260 to me, I think has meant to most Trump supporters. Some people were a little confused about it,
00:45:14.420 I think. And that's what Trump is doing. Okay. This return of reality, I think, is even part
00:45:23.560 and parcel with the domestic agenda. The fact that Trump won, the Republicans won on opposing
00:45:28.520 transgenderism or opposing DEI or whatever. What unites all of those apparently disparate things 0.74
00:45:35.920 is a recognition of reality over the fantasies of people who have become too abstract in their
00:45:43.980 ideology. That's what unites all of those things. That's what Trump is bringing back.
00:45:48.460 Meanwhile, we're importing communists to go run New York City, who are extolling the warmth of 0.63
00:45:55.440 collectivism, who are talking about transitioning, speaking of transitions, transitioning from private
00:46:00.840 property to the collective good, appointing fire chiefs who have never served in fire departments,
00:46:07.460 but at least the new fire chief is a lesbian. That's what matters, of course. 1.00
00:46:10.540 So you're seeing a lot of surreality. You're seeing a clear distinction, which will very likely
00:46:16.900 help Trump in the midterms, help the Republicans in the midterms, might help the administration even
00:46:21.640 into 2028. One story I really, really want to get to, I don't have time though. This will be a
00:46:27.160 little tease. Scott Adams, the great Dilbert cartoonist, who's also been a marvelous broadcaster
00:46:33.100 over the years, made great observations about the Trump phenomenon, especially early on. Just
00:46:38.900 a delightful figure in politics. He's dying. He has cancer. He thinks he'll die this January.
00:46:46.060 And he says he's going to convert to Christianity. And weirdly, some Christians are upset about that.
00:46:50.580 Anyway, we'll have to get to it tomorrow because today's Music Monday. The rest of the show continues
00:46:54.080 now. You don't want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles Canada. Be really as a check out
00:46:57.160 for two months free on all annual plans.
00:47:03.100 Oh, if this is an illusion, an echo of a voice that has died, and soon that echo will cease.
00:47:20.860 They say that Merlin is mad.
00:47:38.900 They say he was a king in Dovid, the son of a princess of lost Atlantis. They say the future
00:47:47.600 and the past are known to him. That the fire and the wind tell him their secrets. That the magic of
00:47:55.680 the hillfolk and druids come forth at his easy command. They say he slew hundreds, hundreds. Do you hear?
00:48:06.400 That the world burned and trembled at his wrath.
00:48:09.400 The Merlin died long before you and I were born.
00:48:17.480 Merlin Emrys has returned to the land of the living.
00:48:22.480 Fortigan is gone. Rome is gone. The Saxon is here. 0.98
00:48:29.480 Saxon Hengist has assembled the greatest war host ever seen in the Island of the Mighty. And before the summer is through, he means to take the throne. 0.95
00:48:39.560 And he will have it. If we are too busy squabbling amongst ourselves to take up arms against him, here is your hope. A king will arise to hold all Britain in his hand. A high king. He will be the wonder of the world.
00:48:53.560 The wonder of the world. You. To a future of peace. There'll be no peace in these lands till we are all dust.
00:49:05.560 Men of the Island of the Mighty, you stand together. You stand as Britons. You stand as one.
00:49:15.560 A great darkness is falling upon this land. These brothers are our only hope to stand against it.
00:49:25.560 Not our only hope.
00:49:28.560 They say Merlin slew 17 men with his own hands. At Gathay, he slew 500.
00:49:36.560 No man is capable of such a thing.
00:49:40.560 The immortal man.